With modern consoles offering gamers graphics so photorealistic that they blur the line between CGI and reality, it's easy forget just how cartoonishly blocky they were in the 8-bit era. In his new book, Creating Q*Bert and Other Classic Arcade Games, legendary game designer and programmer Warren Davis recalls his halcyon days imagining and designing some of the biggest hits to ever grace an arcade. In the excerpt below, Davis explains how the industry made its technological leap from 8- to 12-bit graphics. Santa Monica Press©2021 Santa Monica PressBack at my regular day job, I became particularly fascinated with a new product that came out for the Amiga computer: a video digitizer made by a company called A-Squared. Let’s unpack all that slowly.The Amiga was a recently released home computer capable of unprecedented graphics and sound: 4,096 colors! Eight-bit stereo sound! There were image manipulation programs for it that could do things no other computer, including the IBM PC, could do. We had one at Williams not only because of its capabilities, but also because our own Jack Haeger, an immensely talented artist who’d worked on Sinistar at Williams a few years earlier, was also the art director for the Amiga design team.Video digitization is the process of grabbing a video image from some video source, like a camera or a videotape, and converting it into pixel data that a computer system (or video game) could use. A full-color photograph might contain millions of... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2021-12-25 16:30:11 UTC ]
News tagged with:
#greatest thing
#holy grail
#libraries
These middle grade AAPI and Asian historical fiction books, including Troublemaker by John Cho, transport readers into past, learning about important moments in history. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-02-17 11:36:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#transport readers
#historical fiction
Lakeside Book Company, the book printing division of LSC Communications, will acquire Phoenix Color from ALJ Regional Holdings for $134.8 million. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-02-07 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#lsc communications
Feeding the planet's 8 billion people is challenge enough and our current industrialized commercial practices are causing such ecological damage that we may soon find ourselves hard-pressed to feed any more. For decades, scientists have sought out higher yields and faster growth at the expense... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-02-05 16:30:43 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#book written
The Silent Era of cinema was perhaps its most equitable with both hearing and hearing-impaired viewers able to enjoy productions alongside one another, but with the advent of "talkies," deaf and hard-of-hearing American's found themselves largely excluded from this new dominant entertainment... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-01-29 16:30:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#public affairs
#important step
#super bowl
#tv shows
#fairfax
The Every by Dave Eggers (Hamish Hamilton) took the media by storm this week picking up mentions in The Guardian, Telegraph, Sunday Times, Times, iNews and Scotsman. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-22 14:18:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#sunday times
It may not contain our recommended daily allowance of Vitamin R but milk — or "cow juice" as it's known on the streets — is among the oldest known animal products repurposed for human consumption. Milk has been a staple of our diets since the 9th century BC but it wasn't until a fortuitous... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-10-23 15:30:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#long list
#top chef
Amazon is the Standard Oil of the 21st century. Its business operations and global reach dwarf those of virtually every other company on the planet — and exceed the GDP of more than a few countries — illustrating the vital importance innovation has on the modern economy. In his latest book, The... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-10-16 15:30:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#electric vehicles
#early days
#newspaper publishing
Amazon’s audiobook service Audible and phone apps for reading the holy books of Islam and Christianity have disappeared from the Apple store in mainland China Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2021-10-15 21:01:46 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#phone apps
#apple store
#mainland china
#audiobook
During the Roaring '20s just about everybody was convinced that dirigibles were not just the future of luxury travel but that these lumbering airships could also serve as platforms for scientific exploration and adventure. Why slog through malaria-infested jungles, parched deserts and frozen... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-09-18 15:30:21 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#years earlier
#sources told
#harpercollins
Art may imitate life but it rarely does so with realistic fidelity. As Naomi Pequette, Space Science Programs Specialist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, argues in her essay "The Sounds of Contact" as part of The Science if Sci-Fi Cinema: Essays on the Art and Principles of Ten Films,... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-09-04 15:30:43 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#central theme
#literally millions
#science fiction
A newly launched professional bookseller certification program aims to boost indie bookselling skills. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-09-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#booksellers hit
#bookseller
Quercus Non Fiction has pre-empted The Birth Debrief by Illiyin Morrison, a book offering practical solutions to navigating pregnancy and transitioning into postpartum life. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-27 07:47:27 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Between CEO Elon Musk's often erratic antics, strident competition from existing industry titans, and a public that is still not fully sold on the idea of traveling via electrical charge, Tesla's road to prominence has not been a smooth one. But facing a federal investigation into its driver... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-08-21 15:00:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#taking place
#driven home
#penguin random house
Deep in the heart of Appalachia, modern science and America's bucolic past meet at a unique crossroad of scientific discovery and luddite lifestyles. The Quiet Zone, by journalist Stephen Kurczy, is the story of a sleepy small town that hosts the Green Bank radio telescope. But the presence of... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-08-14 15:30:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#unique place
#finally put
#wildest dreams
#harpercollins
Far fewer politically sensitive titles are on display in the first such event since Beijing imposed sweeping new regulations Booksellers at Hong Kong’s annual book fair are offering a reduced selection of books deemed politically sensitive, as they try to avoid violating a sweeping national... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-07-15 10:57:25 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#hong kong
#coronavirus pandemic
#draws hundreds
#latest bestsellers
#book fair
An emergency fund has been opened to get quick aid to West London's Saqi Books, a publisher and bookstore reporting severe flood damage. The post Saqi Books in London Hit by Monday’s Flash Flooding appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-07-13 19:52:32 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#saqi books
#emergency fund
#west london
#bookstore
If you want to do some serious reading to reflect on humanity and its many aspects, these 5 contemporary literary fiction books are for you, including A Burning By Megha Majumdar. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-05-28 10:38:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#megha majumdar
#literary fiction
Random House's Ten Speed Press imprint has established a new imprint, 4 Color Books, with Bryant Terry, the NAACP Image Award and James Beard Award–winning chef and educator. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-05-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#ten speed
#random house
Blockbuster projects share one common trait. Do you dream of opening that blockbuster restaurant, writing a New York Times best-selling book, or releasing a chart-topping album? A new study out of Northwestern University suggests a pivotal ingredient.Read Full Story Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2021-04-09 16:21:42 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#hit movie
#best-selling book
Can you think of a single feel-good news story from the past five years that isn’t, at its core, an indictment of the society in which we live? Here at Lit Hub, one of our most-read stories last year was “Big-hearted strangers turn Little Free Libraries into Little Free Pantries.” While I don’t... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-02-23 16:10:35 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#late capitalism
#lit hub
#most-read stories
#free libraries
#free pantries
#libraries
#coloring book